A healthcare design project by Virginia Tech Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology, which included faculty, an alumnus, and a student from Architecture and Industrial Design, received a 2021 CORE77 Design Award Strategy and Research category Runner-Up award. The team for the project “Reimagining Medical Workspaces: Information Ecosystems for Future Nurse Stations” includes Aki Ishida, Associate Professor of Architecture; Vincent Haley, former Associate Professor of Industrial Design; David Franusich (B.Arch 2009,  MFA in Creative Technologies 2019 ); and Carl Buck (B.Arch 2022).

Working in partnership with furniture company Steelcase, a team of multi-disciplinary researchers at Virginia Tech examined how to integrate digital technologies with the design of the physical environment. The goal was to reduce clinician burnout by ensuring information flow that is accurate, current, and easily understood, especially during emergencies when stress and emotions are acute. The team’s pre-design research highlighted obstacles in clinician's workflow, to which they responded with designs that integrated information capabilities into the physical design of furniture and equipment, using full-scale mockups and digital simulations to seek further input to create an iterative design-input cycle. Putting aside preconception and enacting scenarios placed the designers in the positions of patients and clinicians, to be empathetic and understand problems and solutions from their perspectives.